Homestudy #2 Complete - Now for the Wait!

Our second visit was over in less than 20 minutes. The social worker was great. We asked her what was next, and when we could expect placements. She said she would call me when we were approved and at that point we would be placed on a waiting list. I wish I had more information about the list, but I will try to find out when she calls. It would be nice to know how many people are on the list before us, how many want little babies, etc.

I have been working on the kids room. I found some things called "wall pops" that some of the teachers at my school use. They are like big stickers that stay sticky and peel on and off easily. I got them in dots and squares in green, orange, navy, and a combo of the three. I have been experimenting with them and will post pictures when I'm done. I also got khaki duvet covers and pillow shams for the bunk beds. My "plan" is to make coordinating throw pillows for the beds. We shall see, I am no Martha Stewart! I want the room to be colorful but low budget. That way if it gets torn up I won't be resentful about money spent.

Two more weeks of classes! I will be visiting the High School until December 19Th. I have a couple of projects to work on for this week. I should have done them during the Thanksgiving Break but I am a lazy girl.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I know I did.

Homestudy #2

Our social worker is coming back tomorrow at 2 pm to check the house. Greg and his Dad are child proofing our many cabinets as I type. They are almost done with the kitchen and still have two bathrooms to do. My Dad is coming to replace a bedroom door (our past dog had a run in with it) and replace a shelf in the laundry room so I can pile up all of our drugs and cleaning supplies.

The house is a total disaster.... and I am not looking forward to cleaning it.

On a brighter note, I presented and turned in my last project before Thanksgiving. OH yes, there are more projects due! However, I got to research and present a topic of my choice so I did "Motivating and Advocating Children in Foster Care". When I told the class I had chosen the topic because we were being licensed for foster care, they applauded. I certainly wasn't expecting that but it was very touching. I had a lot of class discussion and questions afterwards and I think it made an impact. A few things that I discovered in my research:

Most school officials and teachers do not see any differences between low income students and children in foster care

• Children in foster care are more likely to fail a grade
• Children in foster care are more likely to be disciplined
• Children in foster care are less likely to graduate

Scary stuff. Especially when so many of them are "aging out" of the system. BTW, there were around 34,000 children in foster care in 2007.

How many can YOU take?

Homestudy Complete - Sorta :)

We had our homestudy Saturday. The social worker was really nice. Mostly she just interviewed us. She gave us her checklist for what she'll be looking for as far as the house is concerned, and will be coming back on the 22ND.

Basically she said that as long as the house was in order she had no concerns. Because of the wide age range we have (newborn through 12) she said we would be getting plenty of calls. Oh, and by the way, we can expect to start getting calls somewhere around the middle of December to early January! That is both scary and exciting to us. It's funny because we've been working toward this goal since April and it's really just starting to hit us: we're going to have kids in our house. We're going to be responsible for being their role model, feeding them nutritious meals, screening their television time, disciplining them and most importantly: introducing them to Jesus. I hope we're up for this!

I still haven't talked to D, G&S's great grandmother yet. I feel very conflicted about this whole situation.... Part of me wonders if maybe they weren't adopted by the foster family so that we could adopt them. But then logic takes hold: can we handle THREE KIDS? (Shoot, can we even handle one? Will we have a clue?) Where will the little girl sleep? We only have one bedroom. We would have to transition them into a new town, new schools, new church, new doctors, new therapists. Oh yeah, and new parents! My heart just aches for these three, and their great grandmother, who is constantly praying for these precious children to find a good Christian home to grow up in.

Greg and I want to be in God's will. Now we just have to listen to Him and find out what He wants us to do.

2 Days Till the Homestudy! And updates on D,G&S

So the house is a wreck, my projects aren't done, and I still haven't studied for my test Saturday. This test costs $120 to take so I REALLY need to pass it the first time :)

I got a card from the great-grandmother of D,G&S. She says she talked to the CPS agent and the kids are still available for adoption. I don't know if this is good news or not.... my guess is that the foster parents who had the two younger kids decided they couldn't take on all three.

Unfortunately, I don't know if we can either.

I need to call the great-grandmother but I dread it. She is such a sweet lady and I know she is so heart broken about these kids. Please pray for her. In her note she said she'd asked CPS if she could see the kids, and of course their answer was "no". I would really like to know why the foster family decided against adopting all of the kids. There could be a lot of reasons, like behavior problems, personal problems, personality differences with other kids in the house, etc.

Either way, all I can concentrate on right now is getting our stuff done. Did I mention my house is a wreck? :)